This disclosure relates to substrate re-use and, in particular to systems and methods of solid ink removal for substrate re-use.
Paper represents a very large portion of the lifecycle environmental cost of printing. Both the actual manufacture of the paper, whether formed from recycled material or virgin pulp, as well as the shipping costs are high in terms of impact to the environment. Many office documents are printed multiple times in their lifetimes and often are recycled on the day they are printed. As a result, many office documents incur an increased environmental impact over their lifetime.
Ink, toner, or the like can be removed from paper. However, conventional ink removing techniques include re-pulping of the paper. That is, the paper is shredded, disintegrated, or otherwise returned to a slurry. Agglomeration agents, densifying agents, or the like are added to cause the ink suspended in the slurry to agglomerate such that it can be removed by screening, filtering, washing, sedimentation, or the like. Once the ink is removed, the remaining slurry must reenter the papermaking process before it can be re-used. This process is typically done at a location remote to the use location and therefore this cycle incurs round trip transportation costs as well.